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New York Band, Worldly Desires

The 10th anniversary concert of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra couldn’t encompass all the ambitions of this remarkable New York institution, even in two generous sets on Friday night that kicked off the group’s two-night appearance at Symphony Space.

The orchestra, founded and directed by the pianist Arturo O’Farrill, spent its first five years as a resident ensemble at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Now it’s independent. Its 18-piece lineup preserves the sound of the great old Latin dance bands, a demanding repertory in itself. But Latin jazz in New York City has always had a progressive, experimental side, fusing with bebop in the 1940s and sparking innovations through the next decades. The orchestra continues that mission, welcoming new compositions that fling wild dissonances and abstruse rhythms into the mix. It also embraces music from across the Americas, old and new, playing all of its diverse material with the same precision and fire it brings to a mambo workout.

Photo

Ray SantosCredit
Chad Batka for The New York Times

“There is no jazz,” Mr. O’Farrill declared onstage, with his usual enthusiasm. “There is no Latin. It’s just Africa, New Orleans, the world, the strand that covers the Americas.”

“The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Turns 10” was a hospitable retrospective, punctuated with proclamations from the mayor’s office and the City Council and plaques for the musicians. The program brought back many of the orchestra’s collaborators through the years — from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, New Orleans and Brooklyn — in a kind of greatest-hits reunion that showed off the group’s breadth and virtuosity.

The program reached back to the original arrangement of the Tito Rodríguez hit “Estoy Como Nunca,” sung by Carlos Díaz from the Cuban a cappella group Vocal Sampling; he scatted one solo with his voice imitating a trumpet. The orchestra backed the songwriter and author Ned Sublette in a traditionalist big-band bolero. And there were crisp, slinky, danceable mambo suites by a longtime Latin jazz composer and arranger, Ray Santos, who teaches his own Latin big band at City College of New York; one was “Browsing With Bauzá,” a tribute to Mario Bauzá, an architect of Latin jazz.

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Edmar Castañeda on harp.Credit
Chad Batka for The New York Times

But there was even more razzle-dazzle when the band turned to modernism. Edmar Castañeda, from Colombia, plucked a traditional harp in a kinetic merger of melody and percussive syncopation, with the orchestra extending the jazz harmonies. The Argentine pianist Fernando Otero played an extended solo that splashed in and out of dance rhythms, impressionist ripples and free jazz before the orchestra joined him with the angular counterpoint of his “Milonga 10.” Claudia Acuña, from Chile, sang a Violeta Parra song, “Volver a los 17,” in a Jason Lindner arrangement that had horns answering her from all directions.

Randy Weston was the pianist for his own “African Sunrise Suite,” sometimes explosive and sometimes puckish as the music evoked Africa, the Caribbean and hints of Thelonious Monk. The Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto brought back his “Song for Chico,” named after Mr. O’Farrill’s father, the Latin jazz bandleader Chico O’Farrill; it was the title track of the album that won the orchestra a Grammy Award in 2008. The New Orleans alto saxophonist Donald Harrison tore through his “Quantum Leap,” with the orchestra hot on his heels through every shift of meter. Mr. Harrison also sang a Todd Bashore arrangement of "Iko Iko" that meshed New Orleans tambourine with Caribbean rhythms.

There was also an appearance by the orchestra’s youth education project: the Fat Afro Latin Jazz Cats, a sleek, robust Latin big band that plays regularly at the Fat Cat club in the West Village. And yet, with all that, the concert still didn’t get around to one major component of the orchestra’s career: Arturo O’Farrill’s own compositions, which traverse pan-American styles and historical eras to draw connections all their own. That’s for the next decade.

Correction: January 24, 2012

A music review on Monday about the 10th anniversary concert of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra at Symphony Space, using information from the program, misidentified the arranger of the version of “Iko Iko” performed by Donald Harrison. Todd Bashore, not Mr. Harrison, arranged it.

A version of this review appears in print on January 23, 2012, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: New York Band, Worldly Desires. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe